@ George TOO,
Interesting chart. It looks like shooting shootings are going up in reference to time, or down when compared to population, or GDP, or oil consumption, or global temperature, or whatever measure you prefer. Look at those numbers, 21 school shootings since the fifties. That's a lot, and it's way more than I would prefer.

But by any measure, one is way less likely to die in a school shooting than to be killed by a lawn mower. Not slightly more, not so close it depends on how you measure, but way more likely to die by lawn mower.

More frightening still, every school has at least one lawn mower, already on the premises, poised to strike.

@RiggerJack
Economy of scale and proximity. Good food, jobs, entertainment, pretty girls, etc are all close and available in large volumes.

Economy of scale example:
It costs less steel per person to provide plumbing or roof to provide shelter in a large apartment complex than in a single family home.

Proximity example:
Walking wasn't possible for me in rural or suburban regions except for small errands. Now, living in central apartment complexes, markets for food are close. I walk to Tesco for eggs, rice, chocolate, and cooling oil and the street market for chili, garlic, and other plants. I can take a train, bus, or truck for a fraction of a dollar to get into the party side of town or to get to the warehouse sized supermarket.

Also, there's no shortage of offers. I saw a truck, asked the rate to get home, about $16, I almost laughed my a** off. I walked 5 minutes and took one home for about $.30.

A book called, The Green City, helped me change my perspective to see cities as more green than most sustainable villages. Public transportation is awesome now but I'm not in America anymore. I wouldn't recommend SF buses to anyone. They dont compare to the ones in Asia.

You mean you didn't read the list of shootings below my chart? Really, these school mass shootings are all well documented and you can find multiple sources... it isn't hard to put together a chart just like I did.

@ George TOO,
Interesting chart. It looks like shooting shootings are going up in reference to time, or down when compared to population, or GDP, or oil consumption, or global temperature, or whatever measure you prefer. Look at those numbers, 21 school shootings since the fifties. That's a lot, and it's way more than I would prefer.

US population in 1960 was 179,323,175 and increased to 308,745,538 in 2010, a 72% increase. School mass shootings have increased by 300% in the same timeframe.

@GTOO
Should we outlaw sugar or cars? They kill more people in 1 day than mass murders kill in decades.

Child birth seems to kill a lot of people too. Should we outlaw child birth now?

Quit offering a crappy strawman argument as I've not endorsed banning guns. I'd normally give you more credit for thoughtful responses, but this one of yours really sucks. Please try to think of solutions in the future.

I have, however, been vocal that arming teachers or introducing more guns in schools is a bad solution primarily because of unintended consequences. There are other ways to approach the problem of school mass shootings. I have also mentioned that banning guns is possible, but I doubt that is a workable solution... please do not confuse discussing possiblities with endorsement.

on a longer time frame (the link brute posted only looked at the last 3 decades or so) it does look like the frequency went up - but from pretty much none (2-4 per decade) to still pretty much none (5-7 per decade). brute is not concerned.

brute agrees that arming teachers is a dumb idea. it'll probably do zero to prevent further active shooter scenarios, and it will lead to thousands of accidents.

sometimes, the best strategy is to do nothing. this is one of those times. this is simply not a big problem when looked at objectively.

kids shooting up schools is probably a symptom of a much bigger problem that causes much more harm in less dramatic ways. for example through bad health, obesity, burnout, depression, suicides, domestic violence.

better public mental health practices would probably help, but even that seems like treating the symptoms, not the root cause. in brute's opinion, the root cause is lack of community. community is a human need just as eating and breathing is, and it's been going downhill for half a century or more.

edit:

brute thinks the West could learn a lot about community from other civilizations, that have much better culture around community.

I've seen some say that medication plays a role in rebalancing brain imbalances but I see it as more of covering a symptom.

Schools could be a place to build community while building school and they function in that way for some but for most I have seen, they are hostile and more focused on rigid conformity than building community.

When I was young, I thought of community in an idealized sense. Now I see that East Asia seems to have a more effective community building culture. Shame seems to play a strong role here. Caring for others and taking more responsibility. Almost forcing it on those close. Saying no is much harder here within a family. It seems to merit a legitimate reason. Ie- can't go to the store because they are closed, here's their phone number, they open at 7.

I think shame actually has more benefits than I initially gave it credit for. Not saying it's perfect by any means but it helps cement groups together and create a stronger sense of community. I've seen far less homelessness and crazies here in months than I would in just a day walking around the bay area.

So in some way incorporating a sense of responsibility to care for those who cared for you as a youngster and feeling shame if you let them down by not caring back for them seems to be a part of the solution space that works in Eastern civilizations but lacks the same degree of power in urbanized Western Civilization.

So in some way incorporating a sense of responsibility to care for those who cared for you as a youngster and feeling shame if you let them down by not caring back for them seems to be a part of the solution space that works in Eastern civilizations but lacks the same degree of power in urbanized Western Civilization.

and sub-urbanized. brute thinks that space is a legitimate factor here - most families in Asia seem to live very close together. it's not as easy to "escape" from the family as it is in the West. young humans live at home much longer, often until marriage or even after.

Being closer together causes initial build costs to be lower, but logistics of working around all those people causes maintenance of urban and suburban infrastructure to be much higher. This is perfectly clear if you look at costs and benefits of local government.

But I can only speak to US cities, only having experience in the US.

All of your examples of efficiency were based on cash costs of hiring people to do things for you. This seems more a matter of your arbitrage than urban efficiency, but I don't know enough about it to say one way or the other.